GEF/GEF4

GEF4 is the unified effort to develop a new GEF 4.0 code base as a modernization of the current one (Draw2d, GEF (MVC) 3.x, and Zest 1.x, in the following referred to as GEF proper). Being developed in parallel to maintaining the GEF proper code base, GEF4 is set up as a provisional component in order to not being bound to the same API compatibility constraints.

Contents

Current Status

Development has been started by creating a new double-precision Geometry-API (see Bugzilla 355997 for details) based on the Draw2d geometry classes as a nucleus. As this is functionally complete, creation of a new Graphics-API (see Bugzilla 386029 for details), which abstracts from a concrete windowing toolkit and can be used in SWT and AWT context (we assume that JavaFX might become interesting as an Eclipse RCP rendering possibility on the near term), is the next logical step we have started with. After this, the remaining parts of the Draw2d and Zest2 code base will be migrated, after it GEF (MVC).

Additional information about current status and plans can also be found here:

GEF4 SWT Canvas - Will provide abstractions for the combined rendering of lightweight (figures) and non-lightweigth (SWT widgets) objects, inspired by concepts of JavaFX's scene graph (intended to replace the core of Draw2d)

GEF4 Layouts (planned) - Will provide a data model for layout calculations as well as basic layout algorithms. Will be based on the contents of the org.eclipse.draw2d.graph package as well as on the SWT/JFace independent parts of the org.eclipse.zest.core.layouts plug-in.( 394219)

GEF4 Zest - Original Zest2 code base, already adopted to GEF4 namespace and versioning, integrated into GEF4 Git repository and update-site. Not yet adopted/re-modularized to depend on other GEF4 components only (i.e. still dependent on Draw2d 3.x). Will be split/re-modularized, some parts will for instance be moved to GEF4 Layouts components (372365)

Bugs/Enhancements

Bugzilla components (for those listed above) are created one by one as parts of the remaining code base are migrated. In addition, all bugs related to GEF4 are prefixed [GEF4]. Here is a list of all bugs currently related to GEF4.

Update Sites

A Tycho-based build infrastructure for the GEF4 provisional component has been configured under https://hudson.eclipse.org/hudson/job/gef4-master. The build job is triggered hourly in case of changes to the source code repository and further once per day. It produces an update-site, which does not get promoted to downloads.eclipse.org, but can directly be consumed from:

Note that while integration builds are promoted automatically once per week (every friday), milestone and release builds are published only manually on the respective occasions (not yet). Further note that these update sites are merged (so old builds are preserved), while the nightly update site gets replaced on each build.